"One more." I lifted the beer bottle into the air. "You… streaked across the beach."

She blushed bright red. "Yes."

Beer spewed out of my mouth, barely missing her by an inch as I started coughing wildly and pounding my chest. Maybe it was the look of pure innocence on her face or the simple fact that she'd admitted to being naked, and my brain had no problem whatsoever coming up with vivid images that would most likely get me a nice, fancy seat in prison.

"Nice." She wiped her cheek with her napkin and glared. "And, for the record, it's not like it was my idea."

"Whose idea was it?" Dear God, let it have been a girl.

"Elliot."

Bastard seriously had a death wish.

"Oh yeah?" I croaked out, chugging more beer as I imagined my fist connecting with his nose. I smiled as the visual of him crying then pissing his pants floated around my head like a happy daydream.

Dani leaned back in her chair, jutting her lower lip out. "Well, we were both drinking way too much, and he thought it would be funny. Apparently, I thought it would be hilarious… It doesn't matter. I'm not that girl anymore. I don't even know if I was that girl then. I just…" She shrugged. "… guess I wanted to be noticed. I was stuck in high school, stuck with this need to be something important. I know you keep saying I'm seventeen, but sometimes, I feel like I'm eighty."

The room went deathly quiet.

"Well…" I reached over and grabbed her hand. "… I think I speak for men everywhere when I say I'm glad you aren't really eighty. Can you imagine what that would look like on camera? You bouncing around on the beach?"

Dani burst out laughing, her blue eyes crinkling at the sides, making me wish again things were different between us. "Hey, don't hate. The last 5k I ran had an eighty-year-old woman who beat my ass."

"Really?" I grabbed a warm roll. "You still run?"

The piece of crab met her lips, but then she set it down and shrugged as if she'd suddenly lost her appetite. "Not so much anymore."

"Maybe you should."

"Right now." Dani grabbed the discarded piece of crab, "My only goal is to finish what's on my plate. Small victories and all that."

"Eating is a victory?"

"For me?" She gulped. "You have no idea."

"Thanks." I jolted the conversation from my head, trying to clear the cobwebs, but all it did was make me more curious.

The thunder overhead threatened to take the roof off the condo as a flash of lightning lit up the entire room.

And then with another loud thud.

We were blanketed in complete darkness.

"Linc!" Dani's voice was panicked as I felt hands reach out and settle on my chest.

"Here." I pulled her against my naked chest. Her hot breath fanned across my skin. "I'm right here."

"I hate storms." Her lips caressed me as the words poured out of her mouth.

"I know." I kissed her head. I shouldn't have, but I did anyway. "It will be fine, I promise. I doubt they have any flashlights in here, so why don't we go into the bedroom and sit by the sliding glass door? At least the lightning flashes will help us see one another, and I highly doubt you want to go to sleep yet."

"So what? We'll just stare at each other?" she mumbled across my chest.

"Yeah? Too soon?"

Her laugh warmed me from the inside out. "Too creepy."

"Damn, and here I thought I was being so seductive. Oh, well. We can always trade Demetri stories. It's the same as a ghost story, only the ending always includes something bad happening to him."

"You really do know him well." Dani pulled back then reached for my hand, though it took her a few false finds with my abs to finally locate it. Luckily, she hadn't reached lower, or she would have been in for a surprise.

I squeezed her fingertips. "Let me lead the way so you don't end up with a black eye. That's the last thing either of us needs. Jay thinking I roughed you up in the whale tank."

"Right, because that would be his first thought."

"It's Jay. His first thought is always the wrong thought. He assumes way too much."

Dani tensed next to me.

Shit. I'd said the wrong thing again.

But fixing it meant admitting something that would get us both in trouble, so I left it, and I had to wonder… Would my relationship with Dani be one in which there was so much left unsaid, that at the end of my life, I'd always look back and wonder how the outcome would have differed had I actually said what I'd meant, rather than let her assume what I didn't?

We walked in silence down the hall. I felt my way into the master bedroom. Luckily, I'd left the curtains open so that, when the storm stopped, we'd at least have the moonlight on our side. A large, blue leather recliner was positioned in front of the glass door. Angry pelts of rain attacked the glass, causing a rhythm of fury to build up within the room.

Dani tensed beside me.

"Come on." I tugged her to the chair, sat, and then pulled her onto my lap. Not the best idea I've ever had, but she was scared, and if I couldn't at least comfort her without seducing her, then I deserved whatever hell was coming for me.

She squirmed a bit. I winced and bit my cheek to keep from doing something stupid, like going in for a third kiss or just letting out a pitiful moan. Finally, she settled back against me, her legs lying across my lap and over the side of the chair, while her body sat comfortably against mine.